The EU is considering putting video games under the same law that now applies to tangible goods. The law requires “a minimum 2-year guarantee on tangible movable consumer goods”.

So what does that mean, exactly? If the EU has its way, any game that can’t be finished because it’s “too glitchy” could be returned for a refund. At least in the EU countries.

Any such law would have to be worded with extreme care. Not only to forestall (if possible) the obvious abuses that would result, but to take into consideration the fact that software is not a fixed product.

We all know that patches are released for games all the time. Companies may rush products out the the door too soon, but in most cases, they also work on repairing the problems.

Which means the game purchased on day one may not be the same on day three if a patch is applied. So if a consumer has that day one game that doesn’t work on his system, should he be entitled to a refund, if the patch fixes the problem?

In other words, if a fix is available, what obligation does the buyer have to apply the patch? Should there be one? Keep in mind that by far the majority of games need more than one patch, even if relatively clean on release.

It may even be the case that a game might just need some tweak of the operating system to run properly. If so, is the purchaser still entitled to a refund? What if he doesn’t want to make that tweak?

At what point is the buyer really entitled to a refund? If the game crashes on day one? After the first patch? And if the second or third clears up the problem, what then?

What the above comes down to, is that any law should have a “waiting period” before a refund could be requested. The fact that a certain game doesn’t work properly on day one in no way means it will never work.

Unlike physical products, which either operate correctly or don’t, games are a flexible medium that change over time. It would be foolish to treat them the same as a defective waffle iron.

I think it would be open for abuse, but then something needs to be done. I remember years ago buying a game and it wouldn’t work. I referred to the troubleshooting section of the manual and it said that there were known issues with certain Matrox video cards. That was in the manual, so it was not possible to see that information before opening the box. I was able to get my money back on that one, though I had to demand to speak to the manager.

It could be abused though, people installing the game, getting the no-cd patch, then returning it. A while back a neighborhood kid wanted me to look at a problem he was having with his new computer. It was a fairly simple fix. Afterwards I asked him why he just didn’t take it back to the shop, it would still have been under warranty. He admitted that there was still software on the computer that he had bought and returned as defective to the same shop, thus his hesitance to have it serviced there. I told him not to expect me to work on it again either.

Regardless of the possibility of abuse, something needs to be done. It does seem like they are releasing unfinished products these days. Having thousands of your product returned might be a wake up call for some companies, that they need to concentrate on quality control issues.

One thing that should be done if a product is returned is to invalidate that cd key. That way if someone returns it and still attempts to play it online they won’t be able to do so.

Europe’s going down the toilet. They keep doing stuff like this, and it’s not sustainable. They are gonna find themselves a continent full of third-world countries within two decades.

And why, exactly? Come on – you can’t just make a statement like that without explaining your reasoning. That’s yellow press level as is. Living in Europe … I don’t see our system collapsing. Yes, there are problems within our system, but so there are in the more free market driven one in the US. Neither is perfect, and I doubt we ever will come up with a form of society it is. But Europe will tick on. As will the US.

Europe tries to go the way of giving customers the right to return products that are faulty (and that does go far beyond games – this is just applying the same philosophy to games), but law suits against companies are less likely. US law tends more to regulate this through the possibility of going through the courts. How is one system better than another? And why?

I gotta go with C. here. Coyote, I lived in Germany for a few years and I have to say that I love their system of product quality. And Scorpia, I disagree. Their product quality doesn’t just apply to solid goods like waffle irons. It also applies to other items like bananas and beer. Both items that you all must admit are very short lived products…kinda like software.

In Germany, if you buy a used washer & drier for example (I did this) it is guaranteed for 3 years. The guy I got mine from was certified and had something like a bond to cover the work if he went out of business in the 3 years so I could get it fixed somewhere else.

Similarly, if I go to the grocery store (butcher or backer or cake maker as well) I know that the food I purchase meets minimum quality standards that would make a typical American grocery store manager puke. No green bananas for example. Every banana in a bunch has got to be yellow with no black spots.

The key is that the rules are clearly written and easily understood. You know exactly if your product fits or not. Oh, by the way the rules are regularly updated to reflect changes in the market.

I find it highly ironic that classical US-Republican philosophy cheers on exactly this kind of system yet modern Republican politicians call it socialism.

Anyway, back to this. I foresee that what the system would be is that every year the government would issue a set of hardware standards that software need to perform on. Be it a PC, Mac, or console. Before the software is approved to sale it’s got to work and be passed by a regulatory body (or the store). If a consumer buys a game and can prove that it doesn’t work on a listed system then they have recourse.

Where I DO see a problem is that what most people call bugs are simply crappy design decisions that made a bad game. This system will not respond to that.

TW, bananas aren’t software (although I appreciate that about green bananas, which seems to be in every supermakerket here ;).

What I’m getting at is that, at least as far as computers go (consoles may be another matter), is that games which run on some setups may not run on others, regardless of any standards. Also, that if a game isn’t “finishable”, but a patch makes it so, what is the obligation of the buyer to obtain the patch?

I am no happier than anyone else with the usual state of software at release time. But it can’t be a one-way street, with the onus on the developer (or publisher) only. This really isn’t as simple as setting a standard for a can of beer or waffle iron.

Scorpia, why not? (the German’s would quibble on the level of complexity that goes into making good beer…bottles by the way. Cans are for ‘low’ quality beer)

Shouldn’t the ‘standard’ be that the product works?

As for setups, that was my point although I might not have been as clear as I should have been. If the ‘standard’ setup is a Pentium/AMD board running WinXP SP2 with DirectX9.0C (which by definition is also a standard) with X mb of memory and blah, blah, blah….then why can’t a producer simply buy a box that meets those specs and test it?

Honestly, that is basically what they do now. They test the game on their development boxes until if works…unless they decide to release early. If they do that then I say they pay the price.

Patches are being misused by developers. It used to be that a software patch would come out after a hardware innovation. Now it is released to cover up a QA faux pas or a faulty production decision.

NWN2’s SoZ is a prime example. The game was released with a seemingly endless list of bugs (very few hardware related) and at least one very obvious inoperable side quest (its trigger is set to impossible). As a result, the player can walk into a village, see something is going on, even deduce what needs to be done, but cannot get the particular subplot to fire. Instead of removing the village & subplot from the game, someone decided to cripple it because “it gave away too much of the plot” (B.S., if I ever heard any)

Now, in my book, Atari should be held accountable. Yes, they will presumably continue putting out patches, but is that really how a business should be run? Should I have to wait 2 or 3 years to get a fully operable game (or software of any type)?

Finally, what about all those people who buy the game, but never register it or go online to the producer’s website? How are they to know that a patch is available?

I don’t disagree with the the theory of regulation, per se. We definitely need it. That’s one of the most critical, legitimate roles of government – IMO – to help enforce fairness between parties in transactions – to prevent fraud and misrepresentation.

I just don’t trust the government’s competence on execution and enforcement. In fact, I’m pretty much of the assumption that the opposite is true. The idiocy involved in the push for anti-videogame laws, for example. (At least Germany eventually backed down on their attempt to ban paintball).

If you folks are small business owners in western Europe and are pleased with your ability to operate efficiently and profitably, I’d like to hear your stories. I’m just operating on anecdotes I have heard to the contrary. Primarily from the small game studio perspective.

The green banana thing is kinda silly, though, isn’t it? Isn’t it preferable to get bananas that are a little bit green, unless you are going to use them in the next 24 hours? Typically, if they are fully ripe, they may go bad by the end of the week. Or maybe that’s just in our local climate…

Anyway, when you’ve got a government unwilling / incapable of enforcing its EXISTING laws (like, say, enforcing copyright / IP rights), but then quick to belly up and slather on a bunch of new ones in that same arena – well, you are building on a really unstable foundation IMO… and probably crushing the wrong people in the squeeze.

TW, well, that’s just it. Check any “tech problems” thread on any official forum. You are sure to find people having trouble, whose rigs meet or exceed the minimum requirements.

GB, let’s face it, early release is a problem that has been with us for a long time. Diablo 2 had a day one patch ready at release. Shucks, Microprose (of all companies) had a day one patch for Darklands.

Given the complexity of software these days, especially the “A” products, along with numerous hardware configs, it’s really not possible to have a game come out 100% workable for everyone.

That’s one aspect. The other, of course, is the bug problem. Some games release with more than others, like SoZ did. Obviously, that went out the door far too soon.

But is a “2 year return guarantee” the answer to that one? I don’t believe it is. However, rather than go on in the comments, I think it would be better to put up another post on the topic, probably tomorrow.

There’s misuse / abuse of the patch system, but there’s also realities.

Numerous patches that I’ve installed for software fixed stuff that I never actually had a problem with.

I’m dealing with an issue right now with a particular 3D card under Vista (a combination which I don’t have direct access to, as a small developer) – a problem I’d had NO CLUE WHATSOEVER existed. One user has a problem, and I spent some time trying to resolve it. And in the end – I still couldn’t. In what way should I be “held accountable?”

IMO, said user should not have to pay for it (it was a free demo, so there was no payment involved). If my game doesn’t work on a player’s machine, I DO NOT WANT THEIR MONEY. Period. That’s why I beg folks to play through the free demo first before buying games from my site. If I can work with them and resolve the issue (and I have done that, too), then cool. I’ll probably have worked for extreme sub-minimum wage for that sale, but I hope that it will return to me in terms of repeat sales and reputations.

A company that doesn’t offer that, IMO, had either better be dang sure they are producing flawless software (a ridiculous premise, for anybody who has been involved in modern software development), or “accountability” is going to catch up to them eventually and they are going to go the way of the dodo.

Unless they get government bailout money, I guess.

The thing is – even if the store won’t take it, if you get on the phone with the publisher and explain the problem, in my experience they’ll often do the same thing. At least they used to. If they can’t resolve it, they’ll offer to refund the purchase.

If anything has changed recently, it’s probably because publishers are under siege due to piracy. The boldness and sense of entitlement among some people who rip off software is truly shocking.

Anyway – I’ve been on both sides of the argument here. I’ve been treated very poorly by major companies, and been forced to jump through hoops for MONTHS to reverse false charges and get back money they owed me (I’m talking about YOU, Comcast!)I’ve had friends roll over and pay “unpaid lab fees” for classes they’ve never actually enrolled in just to get their diploma. And yeah, I’ve bought games that were so buggy and horrible that I couldn’t believe that they were actually released in that state.

But I can’t see government regulation doing a fair and equitable job of it. Not when they won’t simultaneously step up enforcement of copyright / IP protection laws. And if they did, there’d probably be another segment of their citizenry or businesses that would get unfairly squashed as a consequence.

I always buy green bananas. I grocery shop once a week so if I buy yellow ones they will be rotted in a few days. I don’t want to have to go to the store every other day to buy yellow ones.

If my game doesn’t work on a player’s machine, I DO NOT WANT THEIR MONEY.
As a small developer you can do that. But for a commercially released product it’s not so easy. Once it’s in the supply chain, every store might have a different return policy. It’s very hard to get your money back from the publisher. The store refers you to the manufacturer, which tells you to go the store, which tells you to go the manufacturer – I’ve been caught in that infinite loop before when my kid bought the Burning Crusade WoW expansion and got the CD Key already in use message upon installation.

I agree with Coyote about the sense of entitlement among many these days. I blame a lot of it on the RIAA. If they had negotiated a deal with Napster instead of dragging their feet for years on legal digital distribution (which the people obviously wanted) then maybe it could have been nipped in the bud. Instead it was years before that happened and by that time millions of people got used to getting their music through P2P. Clear Channel on the radio did not help matters either. With them owning a majority of radio stations, the same playlists were being heard coast to coast. P2P was the only place to hear any new music that wasn’t promoted through a payola pay-to-play scheme. Of course movies and software soon followed and we arrive at the current state of affairs.

Look, my point about having a standard test rig is simply as a baseline test to see if the product works at all.
Of course there are going to be users that have rigs that have problems either from their specific hardware config or their OS or their massively infected hard disk.

But if the companies are required to actually prove the product works before release both sides are protected. At least minimally. That is much better than today.

That does beg a question though…would Microsoft have to ‘prove’ it’s OS works before release?